Wednesday, March 1, 2017

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: FRED EAGLESMITH - STANDARD

Lots of people think they're making roots music, but you actually have to have some experience to do it, at least a little more than, say, watching The Last Waltz several times in your condo. Fred Eaglesmith is truth, absolutely 100 per cent genuine. Every song is steeped in experience, every word. There are no basic doors, they are screen doors. When a lover leaves, it's not just the guy who's broken-hearted, even the old tom turkey is forlorn, calling over and over for that familiar face. And nobody's prouder than grandpa when they get his old car that's been in the barn for 29 years up and running again.

Of course, all this would sound hokey coming from most people, but Eaglesmith lives it, and probably even knows people who think the internal combustion engine is evil and prefer steam power. All these are examples from the songs on the album of course. For all the old-fashioned people and settings in his music, Eaglesmith's real power is his completely left-field delivery of the songs. Very rarely are they presented as straight-forward productions. Eaglesmith instead has this mysterioso recording technique he favours, His weary vocals are out front, but guitar sounds are twisted, harmonica floats in front the back, and occasionally some strangely-played sounds played on trumpets, violin and such creep in the background. There's an unsettling quality to it even, not unlike the hill country Mississippi fife-and-drum blues, reflecting the realities of life, the dark corners that are always close by. All that, and he wrote a break-up song featuring a turkey.

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About Me

A veteran Canadian broadcaster, Bob Mersereau specializes in popular music writing. He's been with CBC TV and Radio since 1982, and regularly reports on the arts. Bob is the author of the Top 100 Canadian Albums, a national best-seller published in 2007, and The Top 100 Canadian Singles, published in September 2010, both from Goose Lane Editions. His music column appears each week on CBC Radio 1 in New Brunswick, on the program Shift, and he has written music articles and reviews for such publications as The Coast Magazine, The Telegraph Journal, and The Globe and Mail. He's also the recipient of the 2014 Stompin' Tom Award from the East Coast Music Association.